BREAKDOWN: Beck's cap and trade conspiracy theory

On his television show Thursday night, Glenn Beck set out to explain "how our entire government is turning into Crime, Inc." Unfortunately for his Fox News audience, it was really just a tremendously long and tedious attempt to attack cap and trade and any progressive he can. For the second time this week.

Here's the Cliff's Notes version of what he thinks is so damn important that nobody in the media will cover:

Cap and trade is really just a "scam" and "redistribution of wealth." In order to perpetrate this scam, the Joyce Foundation, an environmental organization whose board used to include Barack Obama and Valerie Jarrett, steered grants toward developing the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX). Investors in the CCX included Al Gore, Fannie and Freddie and some Goldman Sachs partners.

Meanwhile, "really bad dude" Franklin Raines, former chairman and CEO of Fannie Mae, helped secure a technological patent for what Beck never really explains, but it has to do with the cap-and-trade exchange system. Raines serves on the board of the Enterprise Community Partners, so according to Beck, he asked Enterprise to ask the Joyce Foundation for cash for a new group: the Emerald Cities Collaborative ("Green-Fair-Democratic").

And of course, since it's the Emerald Cities, Beck says, there must be a "wizard." The wizard? Joel Rogers, a professor who heads the Center on Wisconsin Strategy. He's directly shaping President Obama's thinking.

So there you have it. The grandest of Beckian conspiracy theories. One University of Wisconsin professor and activist is the "wizard" behind an elaborate system to redistribute wealth and there are multiple organizations and corporations in on it.

Here's how he explains it, in his own words:

That's what this all boils down to. These formerly harmless progressive radicals now have a direct pipeline to the President of the United States, who has a direct pipeline to your wallet. And you're funding a new form of what will be organized crime.

If you're sitting there thinking, "You don't really believe this crap, do you?" you're not alone. You might also be thinking it's delusional and stupid.

But more than likely, you're thinking, how is this possibly entertaining?

Beck's shows are absolutely exhausting to watch. It's no wonder Beck has lost 1/3 of his TV audience since January.

Here's how Glenn Beck addresses the criticism that he's just "saying all these things" and "making it up":

Really? Who owns this network? Rupert Murdoch. Do you know how much money Rupert Murdoch is, well, he's got all these things going on. Do you think he's going to let a guy at 5:00 say a bunch of stuff, put this together, it's completely wrong, and stay on the network? ... Because Fox couldn't allow me to say things that were wrong.

CNN has announced it hired former Department of Justice spokesperson Sarah Isgur Flores as a political editor to "coordinate political coverage for the 2020 campaign at the network." This hiring decision is surprising given Isgur’s lack of journalism experience, her conflicts of interest stemming from previous roles in the Trump Justice Department and multiple GOP campaigns, and the fact that she personally pledged loyaly to Presdient Donald Trump. But, additionally, Isgur repeatedly made cable news appearances where she pushed false and highly partisan talking points over the years, raising even more questions about the value of involving her in 2020 campaign coverage.